Tag Archives: Nature

Living in a two-bedroom apartment with a pint-sized balcony does not allow for a whole lot of green-thumb flexing. Creating terrariums though? That’s gardening I can get on board with! Terrariums are all over the place right now and it’s easy to see why: they’re customisable and hard to kill.

A beautiful florist and workshop space, Octopus’ Garden is a treasure trove of flower power and general plant adoration. I fell in love with the below bouquet and spent plenty of time admiring the bunches of wildflowers, wall of ferns and other odds and ends that lined the walls.

As part of the workshop fee, we had expert tuition from one of the Octopus’ Garden owners and everything we needed to create two terrariums – one fishbowl-sized & one pint-sized. Our places were set around the table with a selection of succulents and buckets of dirt, pebbles, twigs & moss were passed around to bring it all together.

Getting your hands in dirt and inhaling its earthiness is fantastic therapy, especially when you have great company to share the time with. It also helps that you get to take home the delightful fruits of your crafternoon labour.

Lee picked up a few cute extras to incorporate into our terrariums which I totally recommend you do if you decide to try your hand at putting one together. While they were a bit lost in the bigger fishbowl-style terrarium, they look super cute in my smaller one.

You’ll need to be willing to get dirt under your nails to enjoy a workshop like this – so it may not be for everyone – but I love the edition of these little living sculptures in my house. And the best bit? I only have to water them once a week. Perfect for busy plant mothers!

As part of my Chiang Mai adventure with Paleo Nick, Steph from Stupid Easy Paleo and a whole gang of culinary ninjas, I had the opportunity to not only meet the gentlest giants of the animal world, but also to fly through the trees suspended by little more than unwavering faith in steel.

For an incredible elephant encounter, we did the 1-day Mahout training program at Baanchang Elephant Park. The park is a not-for-profit organisation all about elephant rescue and rehabilitation and is situated in the pretty jungle-y hills a fair way outside downtown Chiang Mai.

While I was warned by friends back home not to wear short shorts (apparently touching a hairy elephant with one’s upper thigh is not so pleasant) we got to wear these darling 100% polyester suits instead (which I swear just about hit melting point in full sun).

All jokes aside though, this was a great experience which went above and beyond what I was expecting. Once we’d learned the commands and gestures to work with the elephant (including what to do if it bolted. Tip: hold on tight!) we went for a bareback jaunt around the expansive park. Each elephant’s real mahout (they stay together for life!) was never far behind us and my elephant’s mahout even made me this delightful hat out of a teak leaf while we meandered along.

Our other exposure to the rainforests of Chiang Mai came in the form of a trip out to the Flight of the Gibbon ziplining park. Similarly to the elephant park, it’s quite a way out of town and – warning to anyone with motion sickness – is located at the top of a very windy road. Here we are (looking like the new cast of Survivor!) hanging out on a made-for-group-photos ledge over a waterfall in the wilderness surrounding the park.

After we strapped into our harnesses and helmets, it was time to take on the course of 33 platforms, 18 ziplines and 3 Indiana Jones-inspired bridges. The idea of putting all your trust in a steel hook certainly had some of the team quaking in their sneakers but once we’d nailed the first few, it was an exhilarating way to experience the tranquil (other than the occasional squeal or Tarzan bellow!) surrounds.

I’m sure some, probably my mother included, may be a little suss on the safety and quality of something like this but I didn’t feel unsafe at any point. Our “Sky Rangers” looked after everyone and were great at supporting even the most fearful ninjas to step outside their comfort zone enough to make it a memorable challenge (rather than a memory to be repressed!)

The bloke on the left in the shot below was one of our Sky Rangers, Woody. He works at the park 6 days a week, lives onsite and told us that other than cooking, he has no real hobbies beyond zipping around the rainforest. It doesn’t get much closer to lives-and-breathes-the-job dedication than that!

Other than the photo of me with the teak leaf hat & the one where I’m copping a big neck smooch from a little elephant, photographer extraordinaire Anderson York captured these moments. The above shot was even taken while he was flying along, mid-zipline!

Have you ever got up close & personal with an elephant? They’re such incredible creatures!

For me, no trip to Darwin was going to be complete without seeing a crocodile in as close to its natural habitat as possible. To achieve this, our local friends recommended we hit up a Jumping Crocodile Cruise and work in a stop off at the historic Humpty Doo Hotel along the way.

We left just enough time to pull into the iconic pub on the way out to the cruise. This was where we squeezed in that delicious lunch of croc, buffalo and barra burgers.

Sure, the dog races were on the flatscreen TVs and they’re happy to take Eftpos for your lunch payment but you won’t leave feeling like you’ve missed out on some original 70s charm – the pub’s been standing its ground since 1971, even withstanding the destruction of Cyclone Tracy in 1974.

After scarfing our lunch and taking some photos, we got back on the Arnhem Highway and headed out to the Adelaide River to find us some crocodiles. While I’ve seen crocodiles at various zoos and the like, seeing one swimming along in the river or lazing on the bank is (thankfully) not an experience I’ve had. And wow, there were crocs aplenty here!

The boat we were on was a comfortable, yet still close-enough-to-the-action, size and it was easy to see the creatures sunning themselves or nosing up to the boat to peruse their lunch. The crew narrate the trip, talking about each of the crocs by name and giving some history and facts about crocodiles in the waters of the Northern Territory.

As the crocodiles jump to grab the steak-y offerings, you can see how enormous and powerful these animals are. According to the crew’s fun facts, the halfway point on a crocodile is its back legs. In other words, it has a whopper of a tail which helps give it power jumping up out of the water. So that means that only one quarter of the toothy guy in the above snap is visible. Hearing this, its easy to understand how farm animals, pups and even unsuspecting people get taken so easily. Note to self: never camp near croc-infested waters!

Towards the end of the trip, one of the crew members flung a handful of diced bait into the air, summoning pretty much an entire flock of kites. This was absolutely nuts! I flicked my camera to an auto sports mode and just rapid-fire clicked as birds swooped all around to try and collect a late lunch. This picture had no zoom on; we were literally inches from copping a bird to the face! So interesting to see such a major bird up close – well, at least in the photos anyway! They were flying around so fast it was hard to see much at the time.

Darwin really is fantastic for getting back to nature – even the kind of nature you don’t really want to get too close to!

If you’re visiting Darwin in the dry season (& from what I hear about the wet season, you definitely should visit in the dry) a trip to Mindil Beach Markets is a non-negotiable.

As you can probably gather from the above photo, the big attraction here isn’t necessarily the markets. While the sprawling collection of (mostly food) stalls is hard to beat, they’re merely there to fill your belly while you wait for the real show.

The markets are held on Thursday & Sunday evenings with hoards of locals and tourists alike hitting the beach from around 5pm onwards. We spread out a tarp between families building sandcastles and tucked into a ripping good laksa (which you may recall from my Week of Eats Darwin round up) and a few cheeky rice paper rolls.

It’s a reasonably long beach so as long as you get there early enough, there’s plenty of room to spend the afternoon relaxed with friends and family, regardless of how many kids are flicking sand about. Tip: Don’t forget your sunnies! Otherwise you’ll have stinging retinas until sundown.

I took so many photos as the sun was setting – it was tough culling a handful down to put in this post! Watching the sun set over the water is probably the most magical thing about Darwin.

You don’t realise how different it is to our east coast sunsets until you’re sitting there watching the fire in the sky gradually slide into the ocean.

With the tide all the way out, there were some amazing photo opportunities and I certainly wasn’t the only one lining up my camera on the sand! For any DSLR camera users, the settings that I found gave the best results for the sunset were shutter speed of 1/15 (this was when it was on the tail end of the sunset), aperture of f/16 and an ISO of 100. The only photoshopping the above image received was to shrink it down to size – things don’t really get more photogenic than that!

Darwin really gave us so many back-to-nature experiences (check out our Litchfield National Park trip) and this was definitely the most impressive sunset I’ve ever seen.

Have you witnessed a Darwin sunset? What’s you tip for best ever sunset?

On our recent trip to Darwin, we had 5 nights (one of which involved a mate’s wedding) to see as much of the Top End as possible. I’m going to break the bite-sized must-dos down and cover them off in this series.

We only got to see a handful of the hotspots at the park but wow, well worth the extra kilometres on the hire car! If you, like us, only have a couple of days of sightseeing available and can’t make it to Kakadu, Litchfield is just the ticket to really feel like you’re seeing nature in all its glory.

The first tourist stop on the Litchfield run is the Magnetic Termite Mounds. I’m not going to lie to you: it’s both cool & lame at the same time. We agreed that if we were 7-year-old dinosaur enthusiasts, we’d be loving it.

This whole area looks eerily like a cemetery. Worth stopping to check out for a few quick snaps & a marvel at #insectlyf.

Now for the super awesome stuff that will make you feel like you’re really in NT.

This photo just doesn’t do it justice. Florence Falls is a stunning waterfall which some crazy German tourist dived off the top of while we were there. Unlike most of the other bodies of water in and around Darwin, the swimming hole at the bottom of the waterfall is safe for young and old to paddle in.

If you want to feel like you’re in a Tourism Australia ad, swimming out towards the bottom of the falls is a must-do. Serious omg-how-good-is-life feelings to be had. Except when crazy tourists risk their lives. Then it’s unsettling. (He was fine, don’t worry!)

Hope this convinces you that a little Litchfield adventure is worth your time! We did this easily in a day (didn’t leave town til 11am and were home by 5pm) but you’ll need to BYO snacks and water. Wear your joggers & a hat but it’s not perilous terrain. A not-so-spritely Nan, those using a wheelchair or similar aid and anyone who can’t easily climb a decent set of stairs will most probably struggle to get down to the water hole but the rest of the sights we saw are fairly easily accessed via a walkway from the car park (which you won’t need a 4WD to get to).

Have you been to Litchfield? This was my favourite location on our trip – Florence Falls was magnificent.